Helen Herrman
Professor Helen Herrman
MD, MBBS, BMedSc, FFPHM, FRANZCP, FAFPHM
Helen Herrman is Professor of Psychiatry at the Centre for Youth Mental Health, University of Melbourne, and Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Mental Health in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. She is a member of the Board of Directors, Pacific Rim College of Psychiatrists and Chair of the Global Consortium for Advancement of Promotion and Prevention in Mental Health. She holds an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Practitioner Fellowship.
For six years until 2011 Helen was Secretary for Publications for the World Psychiatric Association (WPA). In her role as an officer for WPA, she convened a taskforce to develop guidelines on best practices in working with service users and carers. She also led a WPA program to develop peer support for editors of psychiatric journals in low-income and middle-income countries to assist research dissemination.
From 1992 to 2005, Helen was Professor and Director of Psychiatry in St Vincent’s Health, Melbourne, during development of an integrated hospital and community area mental health service in inner Melbourne under Australia’s national reform of mental health care. In 2001-2002 she was acting regional adviser in mental health for the WHO’s Western Pacific Region. She was a Lead Member of the Expert Group, Commonwealth of Australia, Australia-Japan Partnership in Mental Health Research (2003–2007), and a member of the National Advisory Committee, China Program on Community Psychiatry (2005-2008). She was Regional Vice-President Oceania for the World Federation for Mental Health from 2007-2011.
For several years Helen served as a member of the Board of Trustees for the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) and has been involved in collaborative activities between WHO, VicHealth and the University of Melbourne in the field of mental health promotion. She currently holds major research program grants with colleagues in Australia and Canada for research on youth, technology and wellbeing, on violence, gender and mental health, and on depression in primary health care. Her other interests as a psychiatrist and public health physician include community mental health care for people with psychosis, and the assessment of outcomes and quality of life for people with disabilities. She publishes widely on these topics in journals and books, and contributes to the editorial work of several professional journals. She received the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists College Citation in 2010 for contributions to national and international psychiatry, and International Fellowship of the American Psychiatric Association in 2009.